out of necessity
The Real Reason the Military is Going Green
Retired Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson calls himself “an accidental environmentalist.”
His epiphany about climate change started with a tactical
problem. In 2006 and 2007, when he served as the military’s chief
logistician in Iraq, he coordinated the transport of millions of gallons
of fuel across the country to power everything from vehicles to the
large compressors used to cool individual tents—or, as Anderson puts it,
for “air conditioning the desert.” He was taking one
casualty for every 24 fuel convoys, and he was doing 18 convoys a day.
That’s one casualty every other day. He needed to get the trucks off the
road. He needed to find a way to reduce the military’s fuel use.
“I’m a soldier,” Anderson said. “Why should I be concerned about climate
change? Climate change brings about global instability. That makes the
world more vulnerable and it’s more likely that soldiers like myself
will have to fight and die somewhere.”
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